LONDON, U.K. -- Dear Diary,

Another sleepless night and then the crazy dog downstairs started yapping, and my phone began beeping, and this all happened before the sun came up. You know, diary, I think I’m losing it. Day 50. How much longer can this go on?

That bottle of vodka I bought? I can’t tell if it’s half-full or half-empty. Either way, it’s half gone. (This is where somebody else would insert one of those wide-eyed smiley faces.) 

You’re right. I should have bought more vodka and less toilet paper. This lockdown is messing with my priorities. You should see the cans of pork and beans in our cupboard. I hate pork and beans. 

I have to go now diary, I need to walk the dog and avoid coming into contact with anybody who might remotely be a COVID super spreader. They’re still out there, I can feel it, hiding in the bushes, waiting to pounce. Sometimes I think they’re coming after me.

Told you I was losing it. 

Okay, hand-washers, how many of you are really keeping a lockdown diary? 

A lot of people in this country are—teams of people in fact—writing down their feelings, their fears, anything about their daily lives as part of a living history project. 

The idea goes back to 1937 when three former students at Cambridge started something called, Mass Observation—mostly because they didn’t like what the newspapers were describing as the “public mood” in Britain. 

It really came to prominence in the war when 500 “citizen journalists” were recruited to write about virtually every aspect of their daily lives—life on the home front. And they did, in great and personal detail. 

The project and the title were both ambitious: “Anthropology of Ourselves.” Winston Churchill used it to craft some of his wartime policies.

The same mass observation technique is being applied to this age of pandemic—albeit the tools of messaging and posting and vlogging and blogging make it far easier.

“I have an iffy heart,” one diarist wrote. “So I reckon I’m in a possible ‘going downhill’ bracket if I catch it.”

Some postings complain about lockdown violators and the “irresponsible media” of course, but also, there’s a good deal of heartfelt affection towards people they know, and some they don’t—all enduring this ordeal together.

“What’s lovely,” the same man wrote, “is folk smiling and waving, sometimes stopping to talk. I’ve stood and chatted to folk for nearly half an hour sometimes.”

So, diary, as I was saying earlier, I’m reaching my limit. No seriously, there are moments when I just want to rip off my facemask, dump my surgical gloves, throw away my bottle of hand sanitizer…and go sunbathing.

It’s allowed now you know. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said so.

Unfortunately, his health secretary announced today that summer has been cancelled. Good cop, bad cop.

No, no diary. Those aren’t tears. And the bottle of vodka is definitely half-empty.